QUALITY, THE KEY FOR ROAD-RAIL SPECIALISTS

THE NEWEST DIVISION OF THE ANRIC Group’s business, Anric Rail, includes a fleet of 30 highly specialised excavators that the company uses on its own projects, as well as hiring out to major contractors.

The Anric Group was established by Riccardo Spinozzi, whose son Anthony is operations manager of Anric Rail.

The rail division operates across the Sydney rail network as well as nearby regions, including the Blue Mountains, Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, and south to Wollongong, Berry and Nowra. The company is also starting to do some work in Queensland, as clients they work for in Sydney move further afield and ask Anric to work with them.

Anthony manages the largest road rail excavation fleet in New South Wales that includes 15 Hitachi road rail (hi-rail) excavators, specially adapted to operate on rail or road. Anric also has road rail dump trucks and a roller in its fleet.

“Anric Developments has been working closely with the New South Wales rail sector for over 20 years,” Anthony says. “Anric Rail was established in 2012 as a subsidiary to the Anric Group when growth in the Australian rail industry called for a team of highly specialised plant and personnel to assist in the construction and maintenance of the New South Wales railways. Although relatively new, our rail division has rapidly become a commanding force in the industry.”

Major recent projects Anric Rail has worked on include a complex steel work replacement in Sydney.

“A single switch is worth around $100,000 so there was no room for error on this job,” Anthony says. “The conventional approach to delivery and replacement would have involved two large front-end loaders having to negotiate their way around three kilometres of infrastructure, including signalling equipment, points rodding, crossings and platforms, just to carry one item at a time.

“The project engineers at Sydney Trains, together with Anric Rail staff, put together a design for conducting the works in a completely new and unconventional way, using a tandem lift with road rail excavators. This would normally be impossible due to the large weights of the rail and the reach needed, but as our large road rail excavators are fitted with rated capacity controllers, we were able to offer a delivery and installation system.”

Hitachi Construction Machinery Australia (HCA) does all the maintenance and scheduled servicing on the Anric fleet, and any major repairs or overhauls, aside from what Anthony calls the ‘little everyday things’.

“We believe that’s part of the key to the reliability of our machines – our clients rely on us to provide machines they can depend on and we know things are done correctly when Hitachi takes care of it,” he says.

“Sure, there are capable mechanics around, but having Hitachi do the work means we know the servicing is being done by mechanics who have been trained on those very machines.

“It’s a false economy to mess around. You might find someone cheaper, but if they make a mistake, or don’t really know what they are doing, it’s not good for our business.”

Anthony says the business has been partnering with Hitachi for more than 30 years.

“We’ve always dealt with Hitachi, right from the first machine Dad bought for the business, and we still have that machine,” he says.

“There are a lot of reasons for choosing Hitachi but probably the most obvious one is that we believe they are one of the best machines on the market in terms of performance.

“We think the machines are faster, smoother and more powerful than any other machine on the market. They’re also very comfortable, and very safe. Hitachi is on top of the game in every aspect.

“They’re also very reliable. I can probably count on one hand the number of times we’ve had any major breakdowns, if that, but Hitachi comes to the rescue pretty quickly.”

Anthony says that a solid clientele, returning time and again, is proof that Anric and HCA are meeting expectations.

“They rely on us to provide them with a reliable machine and they know the Hitachi excavators are of a very high standard. They keep hiring because they are getting good machines that get the job done.”

Excavators doing this type of heavy work run for about 1000-1500 hours a year. Anric turns the fleet over every 4000-5000 hours, or every three years, and Anthony says this is definitely something the clients appreciate.

“Our clients know they’re hiring new machines that can be relied on to perform well. That’s Hitachi’s reputation, and the clients know we look after our plant, so that’s what keeps them coming back.

“We have tried other machines over the years but they haven’t measured up. We’re very happy with Hitachi. It’s helped our business grow.”

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